Alejandro Mayorkas confirmed for DHS

Alejandro Mayorkas was swiftly confirmed Friday to be the second-ranking official at the Department of Homeland Security, putting him in a powerful administration post as he faces a federal probe on whether he exercised improper influence in a foreign investor visa program.

The vote to confirm Mayorkas — the first in a small batch of nominations that the Senate will hold before leaving Washington for the year – was 54-41.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Democrats have insisted that Mayorkas was qualified for the position and that the investigation has yielded no evidence that Mayorkas – currently the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – had committed any wrongdoing. He is facing questions on whether he improperly aided a company owned by the brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with foreign investor visas.

And Democrats were critical of the conduct of the former inspector general on the case, Charles Edwards, who said this week that he would step down from the job.

“This former deputy inspector general, Charles Edwards, on the eve of Director Mayorkas’s confirmation hearing, authorized the transmittal of an email to a Republican Senate office that contained sensitive information about an ongoing investigation involving Director Mayorkas,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Friday. “One thing that both Republicans and Democrats should agree upon [is] that this is wrong. It’s a clear violation, I believe, of the law.”

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) fired back, arguing that it was inappropriate for senators to clear the nomination of an official who is facing an active probe.

“If in fact the [inspector general] investigation finds credible findings of wrongdoings … how’s his effectiveness going to be?” said Coburn, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which cleared Mayorkas’s nomination.

“I’m not saying they’ll find that,” Coburn continued. “And I am sure he is an honorable man. But my duty as a U.S. senator is to know the facts, not to know my feelings. And we can’t do that at this time. We’re precluded from doing that. So therefore, we’re going to approve someone without full knowledge.”

Mayorkas said in his confirmation hearing in July that he has “never, ever in my career exercised undue influence to influence the outcome of a case.”

The procedural vote to end debate on Mayorkas’s nomination for the DHS post was held late Thursday night. Fifty-five senators voted to end the filibuster – which under the old threshold of 60 votes would not have been enough to advance his nomination.

The Mayorkas vote Friday marks the second confirmation this week of a high-ranking post at DHS – an agency that has cycled through a carousel of interim officials in its top positions. Jeh Johnson was confirmed earlier this week as the secretary of the department, replacing Janet Napolitano, who left in September.